How To Clean A Trumpet

A new trumpet is a wonderful thing. When you tap one end of it you can feel all of the instrument vibrate. An energy runs through it that almost makes it seem alive in your hands. When you blow through it, the sound rolls out easily with little effort. It's a fantastic feeling.

To maintain that vibrant sound and feeling of responsiveness in a trumpet, it's necessary to clean it regularly. The optimum maintenance plan is to clean it every time you finish playing. It doesn't take very long and it's easy to do.
Start by taking it apart, taking especially great care when removing the valves. Slide them out gently.


The valves are numbered along the shaft from 1 to 3 so that each one can easily be placed back into the appropriate slot.
Run water through the trumpet body. If this is done regularly soap is probably not needed. For a more thorough cleaning the trumpet can be submerged in a soap water solution.
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This snake, shown here, is then threaded through all of the tubing in the trumpet in order to clean the inner surfaces. When wet it becomes flexible enough to reach round all the curves.






The same can be done for the slides...












...and then the valves themselves. It's very important not to scratch or dent the valves.


The mouthpiece can be cleaned using a gentle soap solution along with the mouthpiece brush.








After all of the parts have been cleaned then it's good to dry the trumpet. If you really like to get a good clean shine on the inside of the leading pipe you can use a soft cloth on the end of a string and thread it through.Then it's very important to grease the parts. There are many different types of grease available, and some people prefer some things to others. I mainly use the Yamaha Valve Oil and sometimes use the Yamaha Slide Grease.

Apply a small very thin layer of the Valve Oil to the valve... .















...and then gently slide it back into the correct valve slot.
I also use the Valve Oil to grease the slides. (There's far more oil applied here than should be used, but the longer setup time to take the photo resulted in much more oil escaping from the bottle.)






And that's all there is to it.



This will ensure that your trumpet has a long life and continues to give you the full satisfaction of vibrant, dynamic playing. Well, of course, there's the practicing to do!

Learning to Play the Trumpet

Herbert L. Clarke was born in 1867 and is known as one of the best and most influential cornet players of his time. He started playing when he was thirteen and was largely self-taught.

When he was fourteen he desperately wanted his own cornet but couldn't afford to buy one. Whenever he wanted to practice he had to ask permission from his older brother to use his. He started doing all sorts of odd jobs to earn the money, including playing in bands. But he realized that even with all his efforts he wouldn't be able to buy one for several years.

His older brothers had been members of the Queen's Own Rifle Regimental Band and he knew he would be given a cornet if accepted to join the band. So he plotted, and succeeded in becoming a soldier at the age of fourteen in order to join the band and get his own instrument.

I'm using Herbert L. Clarke's Elementary Studies For the Trumpet. This book provides excellent exercises for building up the embouchure. The embouchure is the formation of the lips covered by the trumpet mouthpiece. The trumpet is like a megaphone that amplifies the vibration created in the lips when the player blows. The note sounded and quality of the tone depends on the air flow and the tension in the muscles around the lips.Herbert L. Clarke encouraged his students to play softly when they practiced so that they would build a strong embouchure without damaging the lips; he said that the more softly one plays the stronger the embouchure becomes. And by playing softly the lips don't become numb and damaged as can so often happen if playing forcefully. He also said that it was imperative to rest a few moments as soon as the lips become fatigued, even if this happened right at the beginning of a practice session.

There is a very sweet story about how he helped a new and young member, Frank Simon, of the Sousa band. Frank Simon tells how Herbert Clarke took care of him at the end of his third week with the Sousa band. His lips were swollen and he even had a callous on the inside of his lip. He was in tears over his failure and Sousa's apparent lack of sympathy for his plight. Clarke taught him how to play with very little pressure on the lip, and how to strengthen the muscles in the lip to strengthen the embouchure so that he could play for long periods. Later when Clarke retired, Simon took over Clarke's chair and responsibilities in the band.

My Yamaha Xeno Trumpet

I’m learning to play the trumpet. I rented one for a while to see how I liked it, and I love it! Now I own a Yamaha Professional Bb Xeno, YTR-8335RGS. This is used by many artists in top-level concert and jazz bands.

This might sound like a contradiction to be a beginner and own a professional standard trumpet. But I wanted to have my own trumpet, and since I only expect to buy one, I wanted to have one that would be good quality and be suited to the type of music I enjoy, which is most especially Jazz.

I settled on the Xeno because Yamaha is known to manufacture trumpets that are reliably consistent in their sound and quality from one trumpet to the next. There are other manufacturers that make trumpets for a similar price that perhaps surpass the Yamaha in their sound quality, but often this quality can vary from one trumpet to another. This means that such an instrument may have the potential for greater individuality and quality of sound, but it requires that you play well enough to be able judge and discriminate between the nuances of the specific instruments you try in the shop before buying.

Another advantage to the Yamaha consistency in manufacture is that if you need to replace your instrument for some reason, it is possible to buy a new trumpet and find very little variation, compared to what you are used to, in the sound and response of the instrument.

I haven’t been at all disappointed by my choice. The Yamaha Xeno is so easy to play, the notes flow from it effortlessly compared to the student rental trumpet I used before. The whole instrument vibrates and resonates even with a very soft blow into it. It is heavyweight, giving it tremendous power and rich sound. And yet it is also possible to play quietly. The mouthpiece that comes with it is weighted to match the instrument very nicely and the pistons move amazingly fluidly and never stick.

And perhaps not so importantly, but very satisfyingly, with it's silver-plated finish and gold mouthpiece it’s beautiful to look at!